While Southern Oaks has earned a well-deserved reputation as a top-notch wedding venue in the New Orleans area, this location can also be used by Southern Oaks brides on weekdays for their bridal portrait session.
For brides looking for a nice outdoor setting, often this means City Park or Audubon Park, which are both fine options, but a portrait session at Southern Oaks can provide amenities such as space to change in and out your wedding dress, refreshments, as well as a significantly greater degree of privacy and the benefit of having the grounds mostly to ourselves.
The brick-paved walkway with the fountain, the elegant home, and the grand moss-covered oak tree in the background is an iconic Southern Oaks shot. The swing hanging from this tree is another favorite among Southern Oaks brides, and it's also a very popular spot for portraits of the newly married couple on the wedding day. There are also options in the back yard area of the venue, with the pool and horse stables.
A variety of dramatic and beautiful bridal portrait images can also be captured indoors on the spiral staircase, and the venue's gorgeous lounge room is another good spot.
This particular bridal portrait session took place on a lovely afternoon in October with some moderate cloud cover providing perfectly soft light for us to work with. This free-spirited bride didn't feel that the traditional serious and formal type of bridal portrait posing reflected her personality all that much, so even though we did capture some of those kinds of images, we also mixed in a lot of loosely posed, candid-like shots like this one, which I think were her favorites, and certainly were mine.
As much as I'd love take credit for the lovely and perfectly natural expression on her face in this image, this was solely the result of her reacting in amusement to the posing instructions her mother was calling out from off to the side.
Location: 7816 Hayne Blvd, New Orleans, LA 70126.
